Diseño y construcción de una pulverizadora de miel de caña a panela en polvo para la asociación de pequeños productores maquita

Abstract

In Ecuador, communities that produce panela powder still carry out the process of sugar cane honey pulverization in a traditional way, unaware that this process can be technified. This work proposes the construction of a pulverizing machine for sugar cane honey to convert it into panela powder. This is a necessity of the “Flor de Caña” community, which belongs to the association of small producers Maquita. Technification of the pulverization process aims at resolving the problems that exists in the traditional process, which results in: increase in production capacity, diminution of downtime, prevention of burning in the skin from splatters and airways diseases generated by vapours inhalation coming from the hot honey, thus improving working conditions. The methodology used for the design and construction of the pulverizing machine follows the concurrent design of Riba, which allows to develop a double helical ribbon horizontal mixer model. In addition, material selection for the calculation and sizing of its components is conducted. Moreover, assembly and workshop drawings were made employing Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD Software. Costs of implementation, tests protocols and construction of the machine were also assessed. Finally, the performance of the machine was evaluated, from which it was concluded that for converting 150 kilograms of cane honey into the same amount of powdered panela, an average time of 18 minutes is required. This implies a reduction of 50% of the required time when compared with the manual process.